Nelson Sauvin Rye Pale Ale

The first time I had Alpine Nelson I was blown away.  I haven't had the beer in nearly two years, but I still have vivid memories of trying it.  It was unlike anything I've ever had; tropical, white wine like, and with a perfectly balanced malt character.  From that point on, I made it a goal of mine as a homebrewer to brew something similar.  From my extract days to a couple of partial mashes, I've attempted a Nelson Sauvin RyePA  three or four times with various supporting hops and brewing techniques.  However, I had yet to attempt an all grain version as the more experienced brewer I am now.  It seemed all the other beers had off flavors, whether from process or poor fermentation.  So when I was looking for my next hoppy beer to brew, I figured it would be the perfect time for another go at it.

This beer is not meant to be a clone.  The style was meant to be the only similarity--an IPA brewed with rye and Nelson Sauvin hops.  While I do know that Alpine Nelson is brewed with Nelson Sauvin and Southern Cross hops, I went about formulating the hop bill from scratch.  It is very easy to "over Nelson" a beer so the supporting hops are important.  I wanted to be sure to make the Nelson shine, but still add something a little bit different in the background.  At the end of the day, I decided to go with Mosaic, one of my favorite new American varities, since it has a similar profile to Nelson Sauvin with dank tropical fruit and a slight cattiness, but it is different enough to be interesting.  The second supporting hop I went with was Ahtanum.  To me, Ahtanum is citrusy and earthy hop.  I thought the citrus notes in the background would make the tropical, grape, berry, and melon notes from the Nelson Sauvin and Mosaic not appear too out there for an American IPA.  And the earthy notes from Ahtanum mix well with the earthy and spicy notes from the rye.  

As for the malt bill, I wanted this beer to be an American IPA with rye, specifically an IPA first.  Therefore, I avoided most of the darker malts that many rye beers include.  I find this gives many people a false impression that rye is a dark malt, when it's really only about 4 Lovibond (the Rahr 2-row I use is 2 Lovibond).  In my normal IPAs I use Vienna Malt and CaraPils with the 2-row, but I did decide to make this a little bit darker using Light Munich and Crystal 40 in order to make sure the rye is noticeable but not overpowering.  As for the Flaked Rye, I use it in my saisons so I always have some, I saw the half opened bag and threw it in.  I really don't see a need for it since nearly 20% Rye Malt is more than enough to be noticed.  All it really did was force me to make an emergency LHBS run for the next saison I brewed.  So I'd probably leave that out next time.

Nelson RyePA

Brewed 26 August 2013, by myself

Batch size: 5.25 gallons

OG: 1.056

FG: 1.009

IBU: 70

SRM: 7

60 minute boil

Grain

7 lbs. Rahr 2-row

2 lbs. Weyermann Rye Malt

1 lb. Weyermann Light Munich

8 oz. Crystal 40

8 oz. Flaked Rye

Hops

5ml CO2 extract @ 60 min.

0.50 oz. Warrior @ 60 min. (16% AA)

2.00 oz. Nelson Sauvin @ 0 min (30 minute hop stand) (11.2% AA)

1.00 oz. Ahtanum @ 0 min. (30 minute hop stand) (4.6% AA)

2.00 oz. Nelson Sauvin dry hop

1.00 oz. Mosaic dry hop

1.00 oz. Ahtanum dry hop

Yeast

WLP001, 1L starter made 8/24

Water

Carbon Filtered DC water with 3.2g gypsum and 3.6g CaCl2 added to the mash

Ca: 87 ppm

Mg: 7 ppm

Na: 20 ppm

Cl: 79 ppm

SO4: 99 ppm

Misc. 

1/4 tsp. of yeast nutrient and 1 Whirlfloc tablet added with 15 minutes left in the boil

Mash

150F for 60 minutes

Notes

Collected 6 gallons of 1.050 runnings (72% efficiency)

Chilled to 85F, put in fridge to get to 65F

Pitched decanted starter, solid fermentation after 12 hours, blowing off in 36 hours

9/6/2013 - Added 1/2  the dry hops after crashing to 50F overnight

9/8/2013 - Added the other half of the dry hops 

9/15/2013 - Kegged

9/27/2013 - Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Golden, light amber, beautiful beer color.  Slight haze from the rye and a two finger head that lingers around with lacing around the entire glass.

Smell: Dank, tropical fruit, with a nice caramel sweetness in the background

Taste: Sweet tropical fruit start, maybe mango? papaya? that leads into a nice white wine musty flavor with nice earthy note, possibly from the rye, and Ahtanum.  The finish is bitter and spicy from the rye but the caramel malt flavor is just apparent enough to keep the beer balanced.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light carbonation, slightly chewy and dry enough (1.009!) that the crystal malt doesn't compete with the hops. Pretty much exactly where I want my beers to be.   

Overall: While Alpine Nelson is a vivid memory, there's no way I could possibly remember all the intricacies of it's taste.  I'd love to taste Nelson next to this just for comparisons sake.  I know there are different (as was my intention), but they're probably my two favorite Nelson Sauvin forward beers, and I'd love to see how different they really are.  I couldn't be happier with this beer.  

9/28/2013 - The beer won the Best of Show at the DC State Fair Homebrew Competition.  Scoring a 45 (non-BJCP) and placing first out of 79 beers.  Cool!

Honey Grisette

Grisette, a relatively unknown style of beer, is a farmhouse ale with origins with the miners in the Hainut province in southern Belgium.  Basically, what Saison is to farmers, Grisette is to miners.  Traditionally, a grisette is lighter and lower in alcohol when compared to a saison, and generally features a generous amount of wheat. Grisette literally means "grey", a reference to the color of the outfits of the female factory workers that would hand out the beer to the miners at the end of the day.

For my second beer utilizing WY3725 (the first was a Dark Saison I brewed the day before), I wanted to brew a grisette, but make it my own by adding honey.  I read that Shaun Hill uses 15-20% honey in his honey saisons, so chose that as a target amount.  Choosing the variety of honey required a little more thought.  For this beer, knowing I was going to use WY3725 as the yeast, I wanted to have an subtle tart and earthy flavor profile with a little bit of citrus in the background. So to help accentuate the citrus, I decided to use Orange Blossom Honey added at flame out to provide a little bit of flavor, but not overpower the other ingredients in the beer.

"Grisette de Miel"
Breweed 11 August 2013 by myself
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
OG: 1.044
FG: 1.003
IBU: 25
SRM: 3.6
60 minute boil

Fermentables
4 lbs. Rahr 2-row
2 lbs. Rahr Red Wheat
8 oz. Whole Foods Quick Oats
8 oz. Flaked Rye
1 lb. Orange Blossom Honey added at flameout

Hops
0.35 oz. Warrior @ 60 minutes (16% AA)
2.00 oz. Styrian Goldings @ 5 minutes (4% AA)

Yeast
WY3725 - Biere de Garde 2L starter made 8/8/2013, pitched 750ml

Misc.
1 tablet Whirlfloc, and 1/2 tsp. yeast nutrient added at 15 min.

Mash
60 minutes at 152F

Water
Carbon Filtered DC tap water with 2g gypsum and 2g CaCl2 added to the mash and 2 gallons and 1.2g gypsum and 1.6g CaCl2 added to the sparge
Ca: 89 ppm
Mg: 5 ppm
Na: 15 ppm
Cl: 84 ppm
SO4: 99 ppm

Notes

Collected 6 gallons of 1.034 runnings (75% efficiency)
Chilled to 88F, put if fridge to cool to 70F
~8 hours later pitched decanted starter, left at 68F ambient to ferment, solid fermentation 12 hours later
Ramped temperature up to ~80F after 2 days

8/20/2013 - 1.003, nice but not too much yeast character, apparent orange earthiness from honey

8/24/2013 - Needed fermenter so I kegged with 4.5 oz. table sugar and .25 oz. chamomile in 8 oz. water

9/1/2013 - put on tap

Dark Farmhouse Ale

I have begun my search to find the perfect "house" saison strain.  Wyeast re-released in July WY3725-Biere de Garde.  This is a saccharomyces isolated from Fantome and should produce mild esters/phenols, finish slightly tart, and accentuate the malt.  I decided to brew two beers in consecutive days, this dark saison and a honey grisette, to get a better feel for this yeast.  I didn't expect this yeast to be overly expressive, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to brew a farmhouse style ale with dark malt bill and have the malt and yeast play off of one another rather than clash in terms of flavor.  I've had a couple darker saisons where the yeast character and the darker malt flavors seemed to be competing, not complementing one another; so I definitely wanted the latter over the former. At the end of the day, my plan is to split this beer 3 ways: 1) straight with just saccharomyces, 2) secondarily fermented with Wyeast Brettanomyces Lambicus, and 3) secondarily fermented with Brett. Lambicus and my house sour microbe blend. I think it will be really interesting to see how different microbes and aging can make the same beer taste so different.

Gnarly pellicle on the Brett Lambicus portion

The grains to use were the most important aspect in designing this beer. For a beer than is expected to finish dry, and be refermented with various microbes, an abundance of roasted grains can lead to astringency.  To try to avoid this, I went with Briess' Midnight Wheat.  This is roasted wheat that is very dark (550L), but imparts more of a chocolate flavor and deep color as opposed to roast and astringency.  I also used flaked rye to add some spice and earthiness, and melonoidin and red wheat for a little more depth and protein in the beer for the long term secondary fermentation.

The hops are pretty much straight forward saison.  Saaz for a little spice, and a touch of Styrian Golding for earthiness and subtle citrus.

Oh and this is my first beer using a drill to turn my grain mill, which is awesome.

Dark Farmhouse Ale
Brewed 10 August 2013 by myself
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.005 (straight portion)
IBU: 20
SRM: 17
Boil time: 70 minutes

Grain
8 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
1 lb. Rahr Red Wheat
1 lb. Flaked Rye
1 lb. Weyermann Melonoidin
4 oz. Briess Midnight Wheat

Hops
0.25 oz. Warrior @ 60 min (15.5% AA)
1.00 oz. Saaz @ 20 min (3.1% AA)
1.00 oz. Saaz @ 0 min (3.1% AA)
1.00 oz. Styrian Goldings (3.0% AA)

Yeast
WY3725 - Biere de Garde: 2L Starter made 8/8/2013, pitched 800ml
WY5528 - Brettanomyces Lambicus
"House" Sour Blend

Misc.
1 tablet Whirlfloc and 1/2 tsp. yeast nutrient @ 15 min.

Water
Carbon filtered DC with 3g gypsum and 3.6g CaCl2 added the mash and 2.5 gallons distilled added to the sparge
Ca: 76 ppm
Mg: 5 ppm
Na: 15 ppm
Cl: 71 ppm
SO4: 84 ppm

Mash
153F for 60 min

Notes
Collected 6 gallons of 1.048 runnings (68% efficiency)
Extended boil 10 minutes to concentrate.
Cooled to 85F, 6 hr later pitched the yeast once at 70F, left at 75F ambient to ferment, solid fermentation after 12 hours

8/20/2013 - 1.005, Dubbel like, roasty, not much in terms of yeast

8/30/2013 - 1.005, bottled 2 gallons with .85 oz corn sugar; pitched house bug blend and Brett. Lambicus into 1 gallon, and pitched just Brett. Lambicus into 3 gallons